University Benefactor Zanvyl Krieger Dies at 94

1992 challenge gift endowed Arts and Sciences School that
bears his name

Noted entrepreneur and philanthropist Zanvyl Krieger, a
devoted friend and benefactor of The Johns Hopkins
University whose name is enduringly connected with several
Hopkins institutions, died Sept. 15 at his Baltimore home.
He was 94.

Krieger was a lifelong Baltimorean with committed civic
ties. Perhaps his greatest single gift was the $50 million
challenge grant, made in 1992, to the
School of Arts and Sciences to add $100 million to its
endowment. At the time
it was made, his gift was believed to be the largest ever
directed exclusively to a U.S. school or college of arts and
sciences.

Zanvyl Krieger in 1992

"I just thought there ought to be other people involved,"
said Krieger at the time, explaining his decision to
construct the gift as a challenge. "I didn't think it ought
to be a one-man job."

In acknowledging the gift, then President William C.
Richardson said, "The School of Arts and Sciences is, quite
simply, that part of Johns Hopkins that makes us a
university, that brings us all together as something more
than a grouping of superb graduate and professional schools.
The disciplines it teaches are the foundations of all the
others. Without physics and chemistry, there is no
engineering. Without biology, you don't have medicine. You
can't engage in advanced international studies without
history and political science. Without the social and
behavioral sciences, you don't have public health or
nursing."

Part of the Krieger Fund gift is being used to create 10
endowed chairs called the Zanvyl Krieger/Milton S.
Eisenhower Distinguished Professorships, in honor of
Krieger's close friendship with Eisenhower, the university's
eighth president.

In 1996 the Maryland Chapter of the National Society of Fund
Raising Executives named Krieger philanthropist of the year.
The society estimated at the time that he had given
charitable contributions totaling more than $100 million,
mostly through the Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund.

"Zan Krieger was a Johns Hopkins for our time, a
hard-working, very successful man with a vision for what
philanthropy can accomplish," said
William R. Brody,
university president. "It will never be possible to
calculate all the good he has done for Baltimore, but we are
a far better city because of him. Zan was also a genuinely
warm and human man, a delight to be with and a friend and
adviser to Hopkins presidents back to Milton S. Eisenhower.
We all will miss him."

Richard E. McCarty, James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, said Krieger's
"magnificent generosity" has only multiplied in value and
significance over time.

"We are blessed and grateful that we had the opportunity to
express our indebtedness to him during his lifetime,"
McCarty said. "We and all who follow us in the Krieger
School will always take pride in our association with an
institution that bears Zan Krieger's name."

Krieger was born in 1906, the last of Herman and Bettie
Farber Krieger's eight children. After completing high
school at Baltimore City College, Krieger enrolled at Johns
Hopkins, from which he received a degree in political
science in 1928. He went on to study at Harvard Law School,
graduating in 1931. He served as assistant attorney general
of Maryland and later joined the Baltimore law firm of
Weinberg & Green.

The Krieger family owned the brewery that made Gunther beer
and also distilled rye whiskey, a very popular drink at the
time. Using income from those interests and other concerns,
Krieger made his start in real estate development.

A devout sports enthusiast, Krieger played a pivotal role in
attracting both the Orioles and the Colts to Baltimore and
was an owner of both franchises. He remained active with the
Orioles until the team was sold to Edward Bennett Williams
in 1979. Milton S. Eisenhower, who served as president of
Hopkins from 1956 to 1967 and again in 1971-72, was a
frequent companion in Krieger's box at Memorial Stadium,
where the Orioles then played.

The primary source of his fortune was germinated in 1964
when he became the key investor in a start-up company called
U.S. Surgical, which owned the rights to the surgical
staple, a method for closing surgical incisions without
cloth fiber stitches. It also pioneered the field of
laparoscopic surgery.

In 1992, Krieger was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane
letters by the university.